INTERVIEW: Everlasting Earle

It’s hard to be in a band, anyone who has ever been in one can tell you that, but somehow Everlasting Earle has been together since 1998 and no one has died because of it yet (that we know of). The band recently finished their long-awaited LP this year and are celebrating the release of it tonight at Gottrocks with The Weathers and Our Western Sky. We caught up with guitarist Daniel Youngblood to discuss longetivity, bromance and their lead singers musical bouts of nymphomania below. The show starts at 9PM and is $5.

Wes Gilliam: Ok we’ll ease into this one, how would you describe your sound? I definitely hear some 90′s Alternative but also lot’s of 60′s and 70′s guitar-rock in there.

Daniel Youngblood: It’s always been a little tough to answer this one… our sounds always going through subtle changes. Our last show at the Radio Room a guy came up to us after the show and gave us a description that we were pretty happy with. “You guys sound like a mix of The White Stripes, The Talking Heads, and a little Black Sabbath.” We’ll go with that one.

WG: The band has been around several years now, if you had to try and pin-point it what is the secret of your longetivity?

DY: Learning how to deal with each others tendencies has definitely helped us stay together this long. The band has been around since late 1998 and we’ve been the same lineup since late 2005. Those first 7 years, we went through 3 drummers, 3 bass players, and a violinist (needless to say our sound was VERY different back then) but something definitely clicked with this group. We definitely butted heads and thought about killing each other at times but at our worst moments as friends and bandmates, rather than holding grudges and having it end with somebody leaving or being asked to leave the band, we learned from the fights and mistakes, became tighter because of it, and now we look back and laugh at all the stupid shit we did.

WG: You’re finally releasing your new album, and from what I understand it’s been a long process in the making. Can you tell us a little bit about the process and/or hardships along the way ?

DY: We went into the studio with this idea that we were really going to take our time, experiment, and enjoy ourselves. A whole lot of wasted time and money later, we realized what a terrible idea that was. We had piles and piles of tracks for even our most basic songs. We probably dropped close to a grand recording a song called “bluebird” that became such a maze of tracks that it didn’t make the album. It might have taken another 5 years to mix that song. There were probably 20 vocal tracks, 10 tracks of various clapping… it was freakin ridiculous. At some point we got super frustrated with the whole thing, we took a long break from recording, maybe a year plus, and we almost trashed the whole idea. We had some tracks that we really liked, but we had several others that seemed out dated before they were even released. Our sound had changed a ton since we’d started. Rather than scrapping the whole project we decided to go back in and record some new songs that we’d been working on. I’m not gonna lie, we were all terrified. We got together and decided that we were going to go in super-prepared, record 5 new songs, “Don’t steal my moves” “Has anybody seen my baby” “I know” “Give it up” and “I won’t go” knock them out, and get the hell out of there. We ended up recording them all in one night and they’re some of the strongest songs on the album… definitely a better representation of the band we’ve become than the songs that they forced off the album.

WG: It seems you guys are picking up the pace this year, playing out more etc. is this a conscious decision or does was it more of a happenstance type scenario ?

DY: Well, we made a conscious effort last May to start only booking shows where we can do almost all originals. For a long time we found ourselves playing mostly shows where the venue wanted a large percentage of cover songs. Those shows typically pay much better but they kinda become soul killers after a while. But hey, we had to pay for all those recording hours somehow. Going back to original shows with shorter sets seemed to really rejuvenate us. We’re practicing more than we used to and we’re working harder on booking, trying to get the most out of each show.

WG: It’s no secret that I’m a fan of bromance, and I see you guys and The Weathers have a wicked case of it for one another. Can you tell us a little more about it and when do you guys plan to make it “Facebook official” ?

DY: That’s kind of a sensitive subject. We went through a pretty rocky patch with The Weathers for a few months due to this very issue. You see, after our second date together, their CD release party in Greenwood, we thought we were a thing… something special. But when we told them we were gonna change our facebook status to “in a bromance with The Weathers” and asked if they were gonna change theirs too, they got all weird. They stopped returning our calls… we’d leave message after message… no response. I guess maybe we were trying to move too fast. We’re just an affectionate group… we love the Weathers… we wanna scream it from the rooftops. They couldn’t play hard to get forever though, they saw pictures of us with Jojo Taterhead and they couldn’t take it. They came sprinting back. We’ve got a few dates planned this month, the CD release party tomorrow night, the Tiki Hut May 25th, and the Radio Room June 15th. The anticipation is killing us!

WG: A lot of your songs seem to deal with sexuality (I’m Gonna Fuck You, Love Machine, Stripper Song), is this somewhat tongue-in-cheek or are they the fanatical ravings of nymphomaniacs with guitars?

DY: Well keith writes all of the songs… so yeah, fanatical ravings of nymphomaniacs with guitars. We cant drive by two horses going at it with out keith having to pull over and write a new song.

WG: Seeing as how you actually formed in the 90′s, what is the one trait you see in yourselves from the era others (and perhaps yourselves) that you wish you could nip in the bud?
DY: to be honest man, anything we carried with is out of the 90s weve forgotten ab by now. Early on we were highly influenced by the pumpkins… our lyrics were super deep and there was a ton of vibrato on the vocals. Then we hit puberty and started writing all our songs about sex and booze.

WG: With the album release out of the way, what are your plans for the rest of the year?

Ha, release another album. No for real, that’s not a joke. We’d love to play the CMJ’s or something like that, too. It’d be great to see the local scene get on the map a little. There’s a ton of really good bands around these days and it’d be great to see one of them get some national exposure and gets some eyes on the upstate.